A UNION leader has predicted that Rochdale's Asda store in Dane Street will have empty shelves just a couple of days into a five-day strike which has been called for midnight on Thursday.

A UNION leader has predicted that Rochdale's Asda store in Dane Street will have empty shelves just a couple of days into a five-day strike which has been called for midnight on Thursday.

Eddie Gaudie, Lancashire organiser for the GMB union, said 1,300 members at the three distribution centres which supply the Rochdale store in Wigan and Skelmersdale would be taking action.

He said: "Asda operates a Just In Time scheme whereby when a tin of beans is bought another is ordered to replace it.

"They don't have much space at the back of the store to store stock and stock has to be replaced on a regular basis.

"They do not have big warehouse facilities.

"After a couple of days shelves will start to become empty, especially with fresh produce.

"We are advising Asda customers to check the sell- by date to make sure there is plenty of life left in the products on sale.

"The company has tried to de-recognise the union and not pay bonuses despite earning £775M pre-tax profits. The strike will start at one minute past midnight on Thursday and will finish at midnight on the following Tuesday.

"We are advising people to shop at other shops. We are trying to maximise disruption at the minimum cost to our members. We are not getting at the public, but the company."

Mr Gaudie said Asda was attempting to get a court injunction to stop the industrial action, but he was confident it would go ahead as planned.

He said there had been some talk that Asda would attempt to bring in agency staff, but that was illegal and the unions would be using cameras to spot such workers and would take them to court if they crossed picket lines.

A spokeswoman for Asda said: "Around two thirds of our depot colleagues aren't even members of the GMB and we expect most of them will want to turn up for work as normal.

"As we have said all along we'll work hard to ensure they can and that our customers don't notice a thing."